Love at first write: Student finds girlfriend by hanging posters on campus

If dating apps aren’t working, a crazy approach to dating might be hanging posters around the school advertising your need for a significant other, and for one Kansas State student, that actually worked.

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Gunner Gum, junior in elementary education, hung posters around Bluemont Hall and Hale Library last November, as previously reported by the Collegian. One of the people who read that article was Ashley Peterson, senior in elementary education at Emporia State University.

“My mom went to K-State, and she follows the Collegian on Facebook,” Peterson said. “She sent me a link to the article about the poster, and that’s how I found out about it.”

Peterson said she enjoyed the idea, and she took notice of the requirement that applicants must “consider yourself a Christian.”

“It really just appealed to me,” Peterson said. “The first specification was that the potential girlfriend should be a Christian. … That was the main thing, but all of it was pretty neat.”

A flier looking for love greets students walking into Bluemont Hall on Nov. 2, 2017. (Courtesy image by Kaylee Gunzelman)

Gum said he had multiple people email him in response to the poster, but it was the amount of effort Peterson put into showing she was a Christian that set her apart from everyone else.

“I also noticed a subtle awkwardness that matched my own perfectly,” Gum said.

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Gum said he asked for Peterson’s number because he thought that emailing back and forth was a weird and “stone age” form of communication. After Peterson came to Manhattan to see the K-State vs. Iowa State football game, Gum took her to Texas Roadhouse for dinner. They now consider that date, Nov. 25, to be their anniversary.

Nearly three months later, Gum and Peterson are still together. Gum said since they are dating long distance, he and Peterson text and video chat with each other often, and take turns visiting each other nearly every weekend.

“It’s not ideal all the time, but we make it work,” Gum said.

Michelle Wilkes, senior in elementary education at Emporia State, said she is very supportive of her friend’s relationship.

“Ashley first told me about the situation by coming into the living room and saying, ‘So, I am emailing this guy,’” Wilkes said. “My immediate thought was, ‘Tinder is out, emailing is in.’”

Wilkes said that after Peterson explained the situation, she thought it was funny how the relationship started.

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The Kansas State Collegian is the daily newspaper at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas. Its content is reported, edited, and produced entirely by students, and students make up the advertising sales staff.
It is published Monday, Wednesday and Friday when classes are in session during the academic year, and weekly over the summer.